Newest coal plants to stay open: Dutch econ. affairs minister

Minister Henk Kamp of Economic Affairs has no intention to close the new coal plants in the Netherlands, despite concerns that the country will not meet its climate targets without doing so. According to him, the new plats "are the cleanest in Europe, we would be crazy to close them", he said in WNL on Sunday, Z24 reports.

In the so-called Urgenda case last year the court ruled that the Netherlands has to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions are 25 percent lower in 2020 than what they were in 1990. The government indicated that it wants to carry out this ruling effectively and at the lowest cost possible.

A study by CE Delft released last week that the cheapest and most effective way to reach this target will be to close on or two of the new coal plants, in addition to the older plants the cabinet already plans to close. Closing only the older plants will result in only making it halfway to the target.

Kamp completely disagrees with this course of events and will soon publish calculations that will show that closing new coal plants is unnecessary, according to Z24. "It is much wiser to close the old polluting power plants in Germany and Poland", he added.

On Monday Statistics Netherlands revealed that greenhouse gas emissions in the country increased 5 percent last year.